One common way of cementing the grand scale of a fantasy or science-fiction world is to include a wide variety of different sapient races. As is often the case in speculative fiction, "race" in this trope actually means species, or sub-species — we aren't talking ethnicity or skin color here. And racing is right out.

When you have 15 or more, not counting hybrids, you have Loads and Loads. Note that this trope can't be an Informed Attribute; the creator needs to give each race at least a little description, screentime, or artwork.

The differences between each race also need not be incredibly large, and they might not even be entirely separate species. So long as the creater of a work makes a point of distinguising between them in more than just culture, all of the races could be similar-looking Human Aliens.

Sometimes a race is less a biological species, and more of a mutation or modification (such as werewolves, zombies, cyborgs, vampires). Some works treat these as mere variants of whatever they used to be, but in other works they are treated, for all intents and purposes, as separate species.

When a game lets players choose their character or team from a great number of playable races, it has a Massive Race Selection instead. Note that card games do not involve "playing" a race, so their examples are listed here instead.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Dragon Ball: Freeza's army is made up of members of countless different intergalactic races, the Other World is populated by the deceased members of even more races, and then there's all the different races introduced in GT. Finally there's the races the series focuses on the most: humans, Saiyans, Namekians, Freeza's unnamed race, Majins, Kais, Ogres, and the humanoid animals that live on Earth alongside humans.

Valerian and its anime adaptation both have an enormous variety of aliens.

The Marvel universe is bursting with races with Humans, Mutants, Inhumans, Atlantians, Lemurians, Deviants, Eternals, Avians, the Zebra-Children, Proto-Cavemen, vampires, sentient plants, genetically uplifted apes, an assortment of gods and a sentient bacterial hive-mind to name a few; and that's before we've even left Earth. The list of Alien races include Skrull, Kree, Shi'ar, Badoon, Brood, Wraiths, Chitauri, Titans, and an unknowable number of other races.

Fan Works

On the Shoulders of Giants has twelve spacefaring races in the Local Cluster alone. Given that it's technically set in the Mass Effect universe, this is on top of the eleven or so canon races.

Seems to be the case in The Parselmouth Of Gryffindor, to Hermione's growing dismay, between regular sapient species whom the Ministry of Magic overlooks (goblins, giants, dementors, serpents, etc.) to artifical beings (portraits, gargoyles, the Sorting Hat) to the more confusing creatures that can become sapient, but aren't always, like owls and boggarts.

Film

The Star Wars series is an extreme example of Loads and Loads of Races, as the galaxy that serves as its setting has over 20 million sentient species. Even the first movie showed loads of races (though not too many non-humans in the main cast), and the Expanded Universe delights in detailing more and more of them, numbering in the hundreds.

Literature

Older Than Steam: This happened to chivalric romance in The Renaissance, when Italian romancers like Ariosto and imitators like Richard Johnson and Lord Berners started stirring Greek Mythology into the mix. The non-human cast of medieval romances generally consisted of dwarfs, giants, and fairies; a Scandinavian author might add trolls, a more devout one angels and/or demons, dragons would occasionally be sentient, and there might be the occasional wildman or mermaid, but seldom anything else. Ariosto and Co took this selection and added satyrs, cyclopes, centaurs, nymphs, dryads, harpies, and sometimes even gods (coexisting unexplained with the Christian God on a Rule of Cool basis).

China Miéville's Bas-Lag Cycle has at least 15 sapient races (and possibly several more whose identity as separate sepcies or merely cultures hasn't been made clear), and that's not counting multiple types of undead, self-aware Dungeon Punk robots, Demons, elementals and Wyrmen who seem to be a borderline case.

Discworld started with humans, trolls, and elves — although even this was explained in the context of Rincewind trying to work out why there were still dryads. Then gnomes and dwarfs got added in The Light Fantastic, and gnolls in Equal Rites. Then Reaper Man added zombies, vampires, werewolves, weremen, bogeymen and banshees. Then Lords and Ladies introduced The Fair Folk, so the elves that had been vaguely mentioned previously had to be explained as Half-Human Hybrids. Feet of Clay added golems, and Carpe Jugulum added the Nac Mac Feegle (later explained as a society of gnomes) and the Igors (who may or may not be human, it's not quite clear). Thief of Time included yeti. Unseen Academicals introduced orcs and featured the first mention of goblins, who would go on to play a major role in Snuff (as well as a throwaway reference to a "Medusa" in the Watch). (And Night Watch had a brief mention of kvetches, but never really explained what they were beyond being covered in hair).

In the same vein as the Golems we get Gargoyles. On a stranger front, we get Demons, Things from the Dungeon Dimension, and certain Anthropomorphic Personifications (Time specifically, but maybe each one can be seen as a separate race). Also gods, genies (Sourcery), Auditors of Reality, occasional sentient dragons (The Colour of Magic and Guards! Guards!), "Stupid Lizard Men" (presumed extinct as of The Last Hero) and Furies (Unseen Academicals)

The Sector General series by James White, set on a space-station hospital, has so many races, they have a four-letter coding system to classify them rather than just list a few (or a few dozen). Even at that, humans have to share the code "DBDG" with two other (vaguely human-looking) species. There are well over fifteen species with at least minor speaking roles.

In Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series, literally every species of mammal, bird, amphibian, or turtle on Earth has an equivalent intelligent race. An unspecified number of insect (Plated Folk) and spider (Weaver) species likewise come in sentient as well as mundane varieties. Humans are also present, as are numerous other intelligent races, some with a mythological basis (dragons, fairies, unicorns) and others made up from scratch. All told, that's got to be tens of thousands of races at a minimum, possibly over a million.

Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series has a lot of races, as pretty much every planet with life has sentient natives also. Aside from a few dozen species known to the Commonwealth, the planet Quofum stands out as world-of-origin to perhaps hundreds of sentient races, some still extant and others extinct.

David Brin's Uplift Universe spans 5 galaxies which are packed with vast numbers of alien species, since they all keep genetically uplifting animal species to create new races. Not only are there thousands or millions of oxygen-breather species grouped in the various Galactic clans, but there are also very exotic retired races, hydrogen-breathers, sentient machines, quantum races, Solarians, and transcendent races. 215 have been named so far, with over 80 encountered or described in detail.

In the Xanth series there are humans, centaurs, goblins, harpies, merpeople, demons, nagas, elves, werewolves, fauns, nymphs, ogres, giants, zombies, ghosts, and several other regularly-mentioned races.

Just about every Stock Dinosaur (and even more Non-Stock Dinosaur) species has made an appearance on the island of Dinotopia.

Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is brimming with them. In addition to baseline humans, you have the Four Founding Races — the K'Chain Che'Malle, the Forkrul Assail, the Jaghut, and the T'lan Imass who used to be that versescavemen before becoming collectively undead. There are also the K'Chain Nah'ruk, the K'Chain Che'Malle's Servant Race which rebelled. Then you have the three Tiste races: Tiste Andii, Tiste Edur and Tiste Liosan, who are alien to the planet on which most of the series is set and who are known as the Children of Darkness, Shadow and Light, respectively. Then you have the Tartheno Thelomen Toblakai, who have splintered into various offshoot races, most notably the Teblor, and are themselves descended from the Thel Akai. Then you've got a bunch of nonhumans who are part of the same general family as humans and their actual evolutional predecessors, the Imass, including the Barghast and the Moranth. Then you've got the Great Ravens and the Eleint, both of which are sentient races. Finally, there's a whole plethora of sentient demons. This is justified, however, by the creators of the verse both being archaeologists and anthropologists and knowing exacly what they were doing when they created the setting, and evolution is an important factor in the development of all those different races, despite having a fantastic spin to their origins which includes a bunch of Elder Godsplaying creators.

In the Hainish 'verse by Ursula K. Le Guin every planet is a Lost Colony populated by Human Aliens descending from the same species. While people from different planets may look radically different, most planets are no more diverse than Earth. The biggest exception is Rokanan from Rocannon's World. As a result of some ancient genetic experiments it has five distinct species of Humanoid Aliens (some of which are also split into subraces, with rampant Fantastic Racism) and lots of species of non-humanoid aliens. Midway through the book the Earthling hero refuses to hunt since he may kill someone who can talk, though locals aren't that picky. Another victim of gene tinkering are indeterminate-gendered Gethenians from The Left Hand of Darkness.

The world of The Dagger and the Coin was once ruled by intelligent dragons, who reshaped their human slaves into a wide variety of forms, some of which resemble "standard" fantasy races and some of which... don't. In addition to the Firstbloods (baseline humans), the Cinnae (pale, ethereal, intellectual, and rather snooty, filling the "elf niche") and the Yemmu (big, burly, and tusked, essentially big orcs or small ogres), we have the canine Tralgu, otter-like Kurtadam, aquatic Drowned, glowing-eyed Dartinae, arctic Haaverkin, reptilian Jasuru and Timzinae, eusocial Southlings, and the rarely-seen Raushadam and Haunadam.

In Catherynne M. Valente's The Orphan's Tales, she uses a wide variety of races, almost all of which are based on legends of our world. There are humans, to start with. There are animals such as hedgehogs, goldfish, cormorants, polar bears, and herons, which talk and have their own societies. Then there are Stars, djinni (made from Star-fire), the Yi, and the Hsien, for races that come from the heavens. Races that come from the sea include Magyrs, mermaids (a brief mention), Lamia, and selkies. On earth there are Arimaspians and other cyclops, giants, Griffins, dragons, Monopods, Cynocepheli, huldras, harpies, manticores, Gaselli, satyrs, kappas, and there are references to more.

The Four Horsemen Universe: According to exposition there are a few thousand species in the Union. Of those, 37 species work as mercenaries and a few hundred more commonly hire them. The first two books of the main series alone name humans, Besquith, Veetanho, Zuul, MinSha, GenSha, Jivool, Flatars, Tortantulas, Jehas, Cochkala, Pendals, Duplato, and Fey. The short stories add Arezzo (and their subculture Arritim), K'Kng, Oogar, and Avaka.

In Babylon 5 the Milky Way has a large number of (usually humanoid) races — the major players near the Babylon 5 station are Minbari, Centauri, Narn, and Humans, plus the two Precursor races, but then there's the League of Non-aligned Worlds, a collection of at least a dozen minor powers, including the Drazi, Markab, Vree, and Pak'ma'ra. And then there're other species that only turn up once or twice like the Dilgar, the Streib, and the Soul Hunters. The Babylon Project wiki lists 77 known intelligent species, and is missing at least 2 more.

Doctor Who has Time Lords, Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans and their enemies the Rutan Host, Ice Warriors, Zygons, Tereleptils, Silurians and Sea Devils, the Nestene Consciousness, Zarbi, Menoptera, Eternals, Osirans, Usurians, Monoids, Alpha Centaurians, Axons, Argolin, Foamasi, intelligent cacti from Zolfa Thura, Tractators, the Cheetah People, Haemovores and their giant cousins the Great Vampires, Tharils, Macra, Krynoids, and even humans. Then the new series introduced Raxicoricofallapatorians (often mistakenly called the Slitheen), Ood, Judoon, Sycorax, Adipose, Pyrovillians, Saturnynians, Crafayis, Malmooth, Weeping Angels, the Silence, and many other background races and individuals. Don't even get started on the Doctor Who Expanded Universe of which one race, Chelonians, have been mentioned in the new series...

The Ultra Series. Along with its numerous Kaiju, it's also had plenty of aliens (referred as Seijin, meaning Star-People) over its nearly 50 year run. While the original Ultraman and the preceding but lesser-known Ultra Q had some, it wasn't until the largely-KaijulessUltraseven that the aliens became a regular part of the show. To name the most well-known, we've got Baltan Seijin, Metron Seijin, Zarab Seijin, Gutz Seijin, Knuckle Seijin, Temperor Seijin, Dada Seijin, Mephilas Sejin, Magma Seijin, Babalou Seijin, Hipporito Seijin, and Valky Seijin. Phew!

BIONICLE: Toa-Matoran-Turaga, Makuta, Vortixx, Rahkshi; the Visorak, the Skakdi (which include the Piraka), Zyglak, and various unnamed races in the Matoran Universe. Agori, Glatorian, Skrall, Bone Hunters, Great Beings, and Elemental Lords on Spherus Magna.

Video Games with loads of non-playable races

Earth Eternal started beta with 22 PC races. Note that they are mechanically identical; all 22 play the same with nary a stat or ability difference, thus they don't give Massive Race Selection. In-universe, however, they're all entirely separate species (mostly Petting Zoo People, plus Plant People, Clockwork dudes, Cyclopes, Yeti, and Warcraft Orcs with the serial numbers filed off). Then there were the non-playable races in the lore — mushroom people, tree people, vampires, liches, humans, Dor'kana aliens, demons, gods, creepy Dwarf/Mole-Rat guys, the extinct Maar, and more Petting Zoo People. Sadly, the actual game only has 12 PC races, presumably still with no mechanical distinction.

Kingdom Hearts not only has all the races from various Disney worlds, but also the Heartless, Nobodies, Unversed, and Dream Eaters, though whether they count is a matter of contention.

The Legend of Zelda has loads of non-playable races: Across the entire series there have been Humans, Goblins (subdivided into Moblins, Bokoblins, Miniblins, Bulblins, and Big Blins), Fairies, Dragons, Zoras, Gorons, Kokiri, Skull Kids, Sheikah, Gerudo, Deku, Tokay, Koroks, Picori/Minish, Twili, Ooccas, Kikwis, Mogmas, and many more. Humans are further divided by the long-eared Hylians and the round-eared baseline humans, who are considered the same species but separated by magical ability. Gerudo appear to be a similar case, being a group that is most notable for their skin color and unusual gender imbalance.

Super Mario Bros. has a massive ammount colorful and unique races. The ones with bigger focus on them in the main platformer series alone are Humans, Toads, Koopas, Yoshis, Piantas and Lumas, with many other minor friendly ones here and there. The sentient races that tend to stick to the Mook side of things add Goombas, Koopa Troopas (and their many variations), Lakitus, Shy Guys, Boos, Bob-ombs, and several others to the list. Take into account the races added by theRPGsubseries, the many, many spin-offs, and the Shared Universes with the Donkey Kong and Warioseries, and the numbers skyrocket faster than you can say "Mamma Mia!".

To give an idea of just how many there are, the Super Mario Wiki has a category listing every species. It has over five hundred pages in it, though not all of them are sapient.

The Mass Effect setting qualifies since the only race available for single-player characters is human, though Mass Effect 3 multiplayer falls under Massive Race Selection instead. In just the races of the current cycle, we have humans, turians, asari, salarians, quarians, geth, batarians, elcor, volus, krogan, hanar, drell, vorcha, rachni, and yahg. Also known are the protheans (the dominant race of the preceding cycle), the thorian (a mind-controlling plant creature predating the current cycle), the Inusannon (the race dominating the cycle prior to the protheans), the Reapers (the Big Bad, a race of cybernetic Eldritch Abominations that harvest spacefaring peoples every 50,000 years or so), and the Leviathans (a roughly 1 billion-year-old species of building-sized squid whose ill-advised attempt to protect their vassal races from themselves caused the Reapers' creation).

Supplementary materials mention a race that used Brain Uploading to escape their world, the raloi (birdlike aliens), and the Kirik, a race of biotic insects with signs of intelligence.

Mass Effect: Andromeda continues the tradition by adding two new major races and allowing at least one of them in multiplayer. The single player protagonist is still always human.

Might and Magic VI has a single playable race (humans), and takes place in a setting with elves (at least three variants, though only two were known at the time), dwarves (at least two variants, though the second wasn't revealed until two games later), goblins, orchs, centaurs, demons-that-are-really-aliens, demons-that-are-not-aliens, angels, genies, efreet, minotaurs, gremlins, halflings, robots, dragons, lizardfolk, gnolls, treants, naga, cyclops, trolls, ogres, several elemental beings (four known at the time)... admittedly, many of those don't actually show up in that game, but they had been established to exist by previous games and a concurrently released game that took place on the same world. The following RPG games also count, as the only one that arguably reaches 6 playable races is VIII, and that depends on if you count vampires that explicitly reproduce by infecting others with vampirism as a 'race' for the purposes of the Massive Race Selection trope.

The Starfleet Adventures mod for Escape Velocity Nova has at least fifteen governments controlling territory on the map, and that's when you count the United Federation of Planets as a single species to save time. The number tops thirty easily when you don't. Your Player Character is human, though there are nonhuman command crew available.

Non-playable/historical Races of Men include the Nedes (ancestors of most modern races of Men in Tamriel with a pre-Columbian Meso-American culture), the Atmorans (a hardy Proud Warrior Race with Barbarian Tribe traits who may be the ancestors of most of the races of Men, and definitely are the ancestors of the Nords), the Yokudans (ancestors of the Scary Black ManMaster Swordsman Redguards), the Kothringi (an extinct human tribe formerly native to the Black Marsh), the Reachmen (an offshoot of the Bretons native to "The Reach" region between Skyrim and High Rock who have many Druidic elements), and the Skaal (a Noble Savage offshoot of the Nords who live in harmony with nature in Solstheim).

Non-playable/historical Races of Mer (Elves) include the Ayleids (extinct "Wild Elves" of Cyrodiil who formed the first Empire in Tamriellic history and enslaved the aforementioned Nedes), the Dwemer (extinct "Deep Elves or Dwarves" who were masters of Magitek and Steam Punk technology, who could bend the laws that govern the world), the Falmer ("Snow Elves" who were nearly wiped out by aforementioned Atmorans with most of the survivors fleeing the the Dwemer, who twisted them into the Morlock-like monsters they are today), the Left-Handed Elves (or "Sinestral Mer" who were driven to extinction by the aforementioned Yokudans), and the Maormer ("Sea Elves" native to Pyandonea, a tropical archipelago to the south of Tamriel, who have "Chameleon" and are ancient enemies of the Altmer (High Elves)).

Non-playable/historical Beast Races include the Bird Men (extinct Bird People native to ancient Cyrodiil who were hunted to extinction by the Khajiit), Dreugh (humanoid octopi who once possessed far greater intelligence and were said to have ruled the world at one point during the Dawn Era, the Imga (Altmer-loving intelligent great apes native to Valenwood), Lilmothiit (extinct "fox folk" formerly native to the Black Marsh), Minotaurs (half-human half-bulls who trace their ancestry to the offspring produced by the first human Empress of Tamriel and her bull demi-god lover), and the Sload (emotionless, isolationist, "slug-men" native to the Thras archipelago to the southwest of Tamriel).

The Mansion of E has numerous species living in the vast underground complex beneath the Mansion; their ancestors were gathered there as exhibits in a zoo by another now-vanished species. They include Humans, Gnolls, Nomes, Ghasts, Oozes, Wyrms (large and small), Troglodytes, Saurs, Motihauls, Ichyoids, Helipaths, Gobules, Pales, Jibjibs, Spyders, Robots, Killer Trees, and Talking Rocks.

The Order of the Stick has plenty, based as it is on D&D, but it also has a surprisingly broad distribution among the actual characters. Even discounting random monsters, there have been at least three named characters for each of the following: human (Roy, Haley, Elan), elf/dark elf (Vaarsuvius, Lirian, Zz'dtri), dwarf (Durkon, Hilgya, Kraagor), halfling (Belkar, Serini, Hank), half-orc (Thog, Therkla, Bozzok), kobold (Yikyik, Kilkil, the Oracle), lizardfolk (Gannji, Enor, Malack), goblinoid (Redcloak, Jirix, Right-Eye)—plus the occasional sylph (Celia), gnome (Leeky), catfolk, weird frog person, ogre, etc.

In Rice Boy's homeworld, Overside, there tend to be well-defined civilisation-races like the Frog-Men of Spatch, the Fin-Folk of Tenshells, the Machine-Men of the Iron Teeth, the Horned of the Stone Palm... and then there are people like Arctaur, with four closely-packed legs and a head like a cross between a broken donut and a power adapter. Many oneshot body types seem to once have been part of their own race, but estranged in space or the Last of His Kind. Beyond the above, the wiki names and describes Blackbirds, Dimmons, Fluters, Gaundts, Gorrkans, Hornèds, Ice-Striders, Machine Men, Rhed, Sahtans, Shade-Kin, Sirpah, Trills, and War-Men. There are also the unnamed inhabitants of Seen and Taragi, and the mysterious White Formless.

Schlock Mercenary features humans, neophants, primates, amorphs, F'Sherl-Ganni, Pa'anuri, Frellenti, Fobott'r, Vhorwed, Uniocs, Uklakk, Schuul, O'Benn, Kssthrata, Daehremmah, Ystreben, Kreelies, Bradicor, and Enireth. Members of each of these have been prominent protagonists or antagonists of at least one story arc.

In Platinum Black, there are humans, satyrs, Regenerators which come in all shapes, dark skinned people with mouse ears, medusa... slug... people? and just about every kind of beastman you can imagine.

Tower of God: Besides normal humans there are the Red Witches and Silver-Haired Dwarves, the Da'an tribe, which are a docile tribe of giants with eight eyeballs around their head, at least 3 kinds of Horned Humanoids, 3 kinds of Winged Humanoids, 3 kinds of Lizard Folk, several races with eggheads and varying numbers of eyes, shape shifters, shrimp people, all kinds of Amazing Technicolour Population, giant slimes, dog people and many more.

Fabled Hearts stories tend to have a lot of races, with at least one new race being introduced in each of the larger stories. An inter-dimensional train will do that for you.

The Orion's Arm setting contains millions of different "clades." Most of these are terragen (descended from Earth life) and include Human Subspecies (some of which look more like Starfish Aliens) and provolved animals. There're also AIs, cyborgs, robots, sentient vehicles, and at least 17 extant xenosophont species that have been identified, and only about a 10,000 light-year radius sphere of the galaxy has been explored.

Humans. The most populous race in the world, they have many societies ranging from nomadic horse lords to sophisticated magocracies.

Elves. Graceful people who often live in forests but can just as easily be seen in cities as well. They have great knowledge of nature and its remedies.

Dwarves. Short and passionate people best known for their prodigious skills with the forge, many of them live under mountains although some have settled into human cities.

Gods. The immortals who live in the High Plane, they follow their own agendas and scheme against one another while using the mortal races for their own ends.

Faerfolc. Mysterious protectors of the forests, they and elves have a connection. They possess fey magick which can be beneficial or dangerous to anyone who comes across them depending on circumstances.

Dragons. Massive creatures who can fly and breathe fire and decimate armies. They've chosen not to interfere in mortal affairs, however, and merely observe events from their home mountains nicknamed the Roost.

Demons. Winged beings who originate from the Demon Realm and who have recently begun settling into the Land of the Living. They can shapeshift into many forms and are rather chaotic, seeing other races than themselves as lesser beings.

Lefein. Look deceptively like humans yet live for thousands of years. They're collectors of wisdom and are at home with various machines which they keep inventing.

Nymphs. A curious all-female race which lives deep in the forests. They often end up having sexual encounters with travellers which is why rangers call a nymph their fondest conquest. Under their gentle and curious exterior is something far more troubled, however.

Itica. Humanoid cat people who live a wandering lifestyle althouh other races rarely see them due to their preference to stay out of people's businesses. They have sharp senses.

Kitsune. Shapeshifting magical foxes who are often confused for demons. Guardians of lost knowledge and bardic songs, they're a musical and mischievous race who can just as easily be benevolent or malevolent depending on the circumstances.

Trolls. Hairy and seemingly dumb creatures although they are good at operating machinery of various kinds. They have invented a pastime referred to as trolling which includes having jokes on other people's expense.

Pixies. Tiny winged humanoids who can channel magic more easily than other races.

Undead. Unnatural beings whose souls haven't settled into the Land of the Dead for various reasons and who thus exist between life and death. Several variants exist such as zombies, ghosts, liches, revenants.

The Kingdoms Saga has this. Although in recent years the number of races has been cut down substantially, there have been as many as 27 races, including humans, dwarves, elves, Sidhe, drow, goblins, avians, gnolls, orcs, demons, angels, golems, elementals, metalborn, minotaurs, pixies, shapeshifters, werewolves, and vampires. Then you get into the weird ones- Xheertekk, avani, skytails, nalleons, the valkoor, Asarians, lunasols, and Emissaries.

As of Season 4 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, we have the first three of those as the most common races of equine, plus Crystal Ponies, Breezies, Changelings, Saddle Arabians, Zebras, Donkeys, Mules, and Alicorns. When you extend it to non-equine races, you also have Dragons, Griffons, Diamond Dogs, Centaurs, Minotaurs, Buffalo, at least three sapient farm animals (two of which are taken care of by Applejack's family for some reason), Humans, Sea Serpents, Draconequii, and Ahuizotls. If you dip into the books and comics, you add to the bundle Seaponies and Merponies, Trolls, Giant Spiders, Demons of varying sorts, Moonbeasts, and a plethora of intelligent underwater denizens

According to South Park, each species and race on Earth—from deer and elephants to Asian and Jewish humans—is actually a separate species which came to Earth countless years ago for an intergalactic reality TV show. Every other planet has only one species each.

The Ben 10 franchise revolves around a boy who can transform into several distinct superpowered alien species, starting with 10 and going up from there. Each species is fleshed out, either through screen-time, being All There in the Manual, or both. The image above is but a handful of the species revealed by the third series, and we're not even talking about the alien species established by other characters and villains.

Wakfu is this at first glance, though in fact it is a subversion of this trope. The "races" in Dofus (and by extension Wakfu) are more along the line of classes or religions. The characters may change in appearance to match that of their gods, but all are still basically "humans" (and there are un-classed, baseline human NPCs too). Which explains why interbreeding — like with Kabrok (an Osamodas) and Miranda (an Ecaflip), or with Sadlygrove (a Iop) and Evangelyne (a Crâ) — is perfectly possible.

Even if the taxonomy is in a state of constant flux and their status as a species fluctuates, fossil evidence points towards several different lineages of human cohabiting as recently as 50,000 years ago. Although their degree of sapience would vary quite a bit, all members of the genus Homo are known to be able to manufacture tools, and the latter lineages, such as Neanderthals, have been shown to be capable of elaborating art. There is also genetic evidence of two of those extinct lineages (the Neanderthals and the poorly known Denisovans) having mated with modern humans.

Chimpanzees have been sighted manufacturing stone tools, so they have officially entered the stone age. Corvids (crows and ravens) do one better, as they sometimes bend metal into useful shapes and then use these metal tools to various tasks. They also remember where they put them for later re-use.

There are several groups of animals who show telltale signs of sapience and culture as we understand it, but not to the degree of complexity we humans exhibit. Those include the rest of the great apes, dolphins, elephants, and, surprisingly enough, parrots, crows and ravens, and octopi.

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